As the Ghana Police Service and the military continue to find ways of combating armed robbery activities in the country to enable the citizenry go about their duties in peace, The Statesman can reveal that more young people, probably worse than the infamous Ataa Ayi, are being bred to be unleashed on the nation in the next few years.
The group, who comprise of about sixty percent of the seventy inmates of the Borstal Institute of the Ghana Prisons Service, which is located at the James Fort Prison in Accra, is secretly learning all the tricks that would make them bigger and more sophisticated criminals in future, with the tacit assistance, support and connivance of some Prisons officers, according to the director in charge of the Borstal Institute.
Investigations by The Statesman established that some of the inmates, with the connivance of some officers in the institute, sneak out of the camp and go on ‘operations’ in town, returning apparently to share the booty with their godfathers.
The paper stumbled upon this piece of horrid information when it visited the camp to probe into alleged cases of human rights abuses and torture on the part of the officer-in-charge, Deputy Director of Prisons Joseph Kobina Ampratwum.
Though the paper hit a blank regarding its original mission, it chanced upon this scoop, which according to the director, has become a huge source of worry to his outfit. “If care is not taken, these boys would leave the institute with traits of Ataa Ayi…in fact including worse armed robbery skills that would confound even the most capable detective…with dire consequences for our society…”
Confessing to The Statesman in an exclusive interview Thursday, the latest culprit William Edem Agbemabiase, a fifteen-year-old inmate, stated that he has ways of escaping to town at will, but denies being involved in any form of thuggery or robbery, though the paper established he had had brushes with the law in that regard.
“I sneak to town very often, because I and some friends (other inmates) work for some people at Dzorwulu as labourers and garden boys. We do not steal,” he claimed.
However, when he was re-arrested July 3, 2006 together with another inmate by name Kofi Sovie at their hide-out at Dzorwulu, after escaping to town on an operation the previous day, a Sony video deck and Sony DVD player were found on them. The items have since been deposited at the Airport Police Station.
This reporter read handwritten statements from three other inmates indicating that Edem had informed them of his booty from the previous night’s ‘operations’, and where he had hidden the items, and also requesting them to pick them and sell them for him.
Further enquiries by the paper revealed that more than half of the sixty-seven inmates have at one time or the other gotten themselves involved in similar nocturnal criminal activities, although there was evidence that a few of the criminal activities were undertaken during broad daylight.
“When I took over as the OIC about a year and a half ago, I met a totally disorganised institution. Officers and inmates were behaving as if they were in an uncivilised society…They operated as if there are no rules governing their behaviour. The inmates were leaving the institution for town at random and they were not being accounted for,” the Director lamented to The Statesman. He indicated that attempts to restructure the institute through a vigorous educational programme for both officers and inmates for the achievement of the purpose for which the institution was established, had been met with misgivings and unhealthy posturing by some of the officers, which clearly indicates how unprepared they were for task.
“It is a clear case of people undermining the good intentions of the service instead of cooperating to help reform the boys, so that all Ghanaians would be safe in future from hardened criminals…Only officers who do not have any fatherly love for children would decide to leave these children to continue in their nefarious behaviours. I would not do that. Like I said earlier, some of them are worse than Ataa Ayi, because Ataa Ayi would use the gun and machete to rob his victim; but these boys are systematically training themselves to rob without arms and without leaving any trails for you to follow” he stated emphatically.
He told The Statesman that measures he was putting in place together with like-minded officers in the institute included regularly durbars for both officers and inmates to share ideas on what forms of education could help the boys see the need to abide by the rules and regulations governing the institute as well as the dangers in leaving the camp to town.
“I always fear when they sneak to town because they can easily get involved in criminal activities and be killed…with the blame being put on us over here…that is why we insist that they must learn to stay here and concentrate on their vocations in order for them to become useful citizens when they finally leave the institute”.
The last of such durbars was held on May 31, 2006 with six senior officers and over one hundred subordinate officers in attendance, the paper learnt, with senior officers, including Mr Ampratwum presiding and CSP JB Mwinyelle, 2i/c Supt JNA Aryeetey (welfare); DSP RK Tuepke, DSP Victoria Acquaye, (Guidance and Counselling) and ASP Aaron Agbo, (Health) all partaking. Sounding a word of caution to officers who condone the activities of the inmates, Mr Ampretwum had this to say: “I want to exhort officers once again that they have the responsibility of protecting these inmates from getting into trouble outside the institute…they must therefore control the movement of the inmates by escorting them wherever they go…and let me warn that any officer who condones or assists an inmate to escape from this institute will certainly the full rigours of the law.,”
Earlier this year, the Ghanaian Times published a story in which two inmates of the institute, Benjamin Essel and Nana Kwame, sneaked outside the camp and managed to steal parcels donated to wedding couples at a wedding ceremony held at the Police Church to the amazement of police officers.
The Borstal institute was established in May 19, 1947 to reform young offenders and reorient them from criminal tendencies by giving them vocational training to make them employable and worthy citizens of the land.
